With the passing of Eddie Kim (praise be to him) it is time for new members to take his place. It is here that we will discuss the most CONSISTENTLY UNDER RANKED region, SoCal. I trust that these rankings shall hold GREAT weight, while surpassing the ""Morlan"" rankings in both prestige and butt-hurt. I will post my rankings soon, pending mod approval of this post.

1. CCA ADespite an abundance of unmotivated and insubordinate underclassmen, as well as one insanely garbage upperclassman (Alan Zhu 39) to really drag the club down, I am sure that CCA A will do well this year. I dare you to try to find a conflict of interest.

2. ArcadiaExamining the circuit last year, the team with the most impressive record that retained the most of their members was Arcadia. Arcadia A finished T-25th at the 2017 HSNCT, while their B team finished T-65th. Led by Andrew Hoagland (11) and Matt Forster (12), this year's Arcadia loses only one member, Donna Sayphraraj. Arcadia's success this year will depend on how well they integrate the A and B teams from last year into a championship-tier team. If the team studied, I am sure that they will pose a serious threat at nationals. I anticipate a season of close games between Arcadia and CCA this year, not unlike CCA and Westview last year.

3. WestviewI know that this ranking might be controversial. If I was Fred Morlan using a PPB based method, Westview would be ranked significantly lower. However, I know that they have several dedicated freshman that studied a lot over the summer. Look at the NASAT mirror stats for reference (please note that these stats do not include a key member, Rohan Venkateswaran (10)). If (and only if) these freshman can successfully support dominant, first-class, superior science player Kevin Yu (12), Westview will have a successful season as a dark horse contender. A lot will depend on whether these sophomores can pick up the slack left behind by the departure of Rahul Keyal.

4/5. Irvine and Torrey PinesThese two teams are similar in that they both return primary scorers. For Irvine, Shripad Badithe (12). For Torrey Pines, Thomas Freedman (12). While Torrey Pines had the advantage over Irvine at the end of last year, I am not sure how much Shripad or Andy Huang (12) studied over the summer. I am pretty sure that Thomas did not study much. Either way, the standings will probably be rounded out by these teams. These two teams serve as the next logical step from the teams ranked above. For non SoCal-ers analyzing this, please note that Thomas did not attend the 2017 HSNCT.

Rest of the teamsThese teams lose out on major scoring, or I don't know them well enough. Cathedral (Keoni), La Jolla (James), Rancho Beranrdo (Bryan), Scripps Ranch, Olympian, Santa Monica

Overall, I think SoCal will be a significantly weaker region. Unless some underclassmen from last year pop out of the hyperbolic time chamber, these rankings will probably be accurate. PLEASE comment below to let me know what you think. It's time to bring some visibility to Socal.

As of now, I've only seen three ways this CCA A team can be beaten. 1. Jeffrey eats 2 In'n'out Double Doubles and gets food coma. 2. A horrendous negstorm that is relatively rare 3. Buzzer races galore on a relatively easy set (I'm looking at you CCA B). Forgoing these circumstances, Jeffrey Qiu (12), Daniel Wang (12), Boopala Arul (12) cover between them virtually the entire quizbowl canon deeply and well, and will be extremely difficult to defeat for the place of regional hegemony .

2. Arcadia A

Despite graduating role players such as Donna S, Arcadia A keeps its crux of scoring in Andrew Hoagland (11), Matt Forster (12), and Roger Lin (12). This team does have the potential to upset CCA A, especially on IS sets if Boopala Arul (12) is not present on CCA A and Arc A uses their depth in history/CE/geography to take advantage.

3, Tier 2: Tied: Irvine, Torrey Pines, Westview, CCA B

Honestly, these teams fall into the "good" tier. By that I mean, given each of these team's experience with the IS set, there isn't any clear superiority of teams. I can easily see the following 4 teams trading matches to each other. As such, I don't think its very fair to rank teams in a hierarchy of order. Of course, someone may have studied extremely hard over the summer (I'm thinking CCA B and Westview), but given the data I have for the preseason:

Irvine retains generalist Shripad B (12) and Andy Huang (12), who for the previous season also formed the crux of scoring. Irvine will likely fare better on IS sets than housewrites due to their loss of fine arts players to the graduation hammer and corresponding disadvantage on a 2/2 FA distribution. Since I happen to be on Irvine, I think I should say no more to avoid conflicts of interest.

Torrey Pines - aka Thomas Freedman (12) et al. Despite sporadic attendance, Thomas Freedman is likely the best pure scorer in Socal. Originally a strong history/geo/CE player, Thomas last year showed his expansion into a full blown generalist. However, given Thomas's propensity for negging, Torrey Pines is probably the easiest team in this 4 way tie to upset. And if Thomas doesn't play (which happens fairly frequently), I doubt Russell C (12) or Richard L (12) can consistently compete with the other three teams in this tier due to their relative lack of depth.

Westview is an interesting case. Having graduated the crux of its scoring - including all star Rahul Keyal - Kevin Yu (12) looks to rebuild with a handful of former Westview B players. Given Kevin's performance at PACE and quizbowl experience, however, I actually expect him to go linsanity on the region and become one of the best regional scorers - on the level of Shripad B, Jeffrey Q, and Andrew H.

CCA B: Wesley Zhang (10) and Alan Zhu (11) form the crux of CAA B scoring, which if I remember from my time moderating for them, is usually loud and frenetic. I expect CCA B to win most of its games by clinching 11/20 tossups - unless the packet goes their way objectively they don't have as much depth as the other three teams on this tier. This team seems much better on NAQT than housewrite sets and like their big brother team, has a streaky playstyle punctuated by negs. Only in the case of the big brother team, those streaks are like, half the packet. Just as I had said TP would be the easiest team to upset, CCA B is probably the easiest team in this tier to outright beat, but also the team with the most upset potential due to high tossup rates.

7. Arcadia B

The only reason Arcadia B doesn't belong in the above tier is because I'm assuming one of their scorers will go to Arcadia A to help cover FA. Given the extremely balanced scoring of Arc B, the loss of any member will significantly damage their team scoring and depth.

turns out olympian (A and B!!!) are very very good, i'd put them just under arcadia they seem to be an naqt team, and have a weirdly low power rate considering their (very!) good ppb.they also never neg

Now that SoCal has had its first NAQT and house-write tournaments, I'll make some probably not very well thought out rankings for this year.

1 - Canyon Crest AConsidering their performances at NSC the last two years, CCA A is undoubtedly the best high school team is SoCal at PACE style questions. Jeffrey is notably the best literature and arts player in the circuit, Daniel is one of the best science players in the nation, and Boopala has incredibly deep knowledge in history and the likes. Their dominant performance at Triton Fall, notably beating out TJ A in PPB (despite a slightly less impressive TU statline), puts them near the top of the nation.

2 - Arcadia AArcadia A is consistently solid, and their T-25 placing at HSNCT and recent win at IHOP prove it. They are definitely more of an NAQT team considering their slightly lackluster performances at EFT and Triton Fall, but if Andrew can get more support throughout the year they'll be really hard to beat.

T3 - Westview A / Olympian ? / Irvine A I think we've shown that we are a solid house-write team, beating out a full+ Arcadia A at EFT with three players and a not-so-full Arcadia A at Triton Fall. However, we suffer heavily on NAQT and lack the coverage of History, Geography, and Current Events that many other teams are strong in, which is why I put us lower than Arcadia.

Olympian has proven themselves multiple times that they are a great NAQT team, and their super-consistent, super-balanced scoring patterns can likely beat any team that isn't on guard. They'll almost definitely improve on their playoff showing at HSNCT from last year, though I am still confused as to how they organize their teams.

Irvine is complete speculation since Shripad has not made an appearance, but they were a great NAQT team last year and likely still will be this year.

6 - CCA BCCA B has shown great prowess in PACE style questions in underclassmen Raymond and Wesley, and could be a national contender if they keep up the pace.

T7 - North Hollywood A / Santa Monica A / Arcadia BSomehow everyone forgot about them in the posts above, but North Hollywood has great balance and well-rounded knowledge and has demonstrated good results in both tournaments.

I don't know much about Santa Monica, but they seem like a solid NAQT team.

Arcadia B, like their A team, is a very good team on IS questions, but it's questionable how well they scale up and to PACE type sets.

In conclusion, this list is a complete mess since I tried to combine housewrite performance and NAQT performance into a single ranking, and a lot of matches are toss-ups between the teams. It looks like it'll be a competitive year though, so here's to hoping for a good showing from SoCal at nationals.

It has been a while since anyone last posted a comparison on this page, so I guess I might as well. In a vain attempt to make my updated rankings semi-useful to anybody who might be reading, I've decided to rank teams on NAQT and the limited house-writes so far separately, because it seems like there's a major difference in how certain teams preform on those two formats. With that, lets commence with the insanity.

CCA A

NAQT: 1stHousewrites: 1st

I'm pretty sure basically everything that could be said about CCA has already been said at one point or another. Jeffery is a god, Daniel has the potential to pop off like crazy at any given game, Boopala is a complete monster, and Alan covers almost everything not already dominated by the prior three. The one significant change that's taken place is that at least we know that CCA can at least be beaten at NAQT under the right circumstances, even if that rarely ever actually happens.

Olympian A:

NAQT: T2ndHousewrites: NA

Olympian is probably the most consistent team in Southern California right now. They almost never neg and have scored above 21 PPB in every tournament they've gone to so far. The one thing I will say about Olympian is that it isn't really clear what their set A team actually is, as they have a tendency to swap players around pretty often. Luckily, this doesn't seem to be too much of a problem, as there seems to be many able minded members on the B-team capable of being strong starters. (James and Athina both had really strong outings at OASIS while playing next to usual starters Ocean and Manuel). However, Olympian has yet to actually go to a housewrite tournament so far, which is a shame, because it would be really interesting to see how they would do at say... [INSERT REXT ADVERTISEMENT HERE].

Westview A:

NAQT: T2ndHousewrites: 2nd

Ok, obviously I have some bias here, but I think we've more or less proven ourselves to be a decent team so far this year. With the exception of OASIS, every HS tournament to which senpai Kevin went to resulted in a 2nd place finish for Westview. From those results, I think it's pretty fair to say we might be okay at this whole quiz bowl thing. Hopefully, my fellow sophomores and I can continue to help the team improve as a whole as the year goes on, but for the most part, I think we've played well enough to be seeded this high on the list.

Arcaidia A:

NAQT: 4thHousewrites: 3rd

I'm probably going to get some flack for this one honestly. Most rankings so far have had Arcadia as second in SoCal, but to be completely honest, I'm not sure how well that's held up overall. Excluding IHOP, Arcadia hasn't really had as many explosive performances as expected. They aren't a bad team by any means of the imagination, as a matter of fact their PPB continues to be at the top of most tournaments they go to, but the team needs to work on their consistency if they want to stay at the top of the standings. However, from what I could tell from OASIS, the team seems to be improving, as Andrew delivered a very impressive solo performance despite not making semis.

Irvine A:

NAQT: 5thHousewrites: 4th

Unfortunately, I haven't actually gotten a chance to play Irvine so far this year, so I won't really be able to give as in depth of an analysis as some of the other teams on this list. Going purely off stats however, A few things become immediately obvious. First, Shripad seems to have gotten a valuable second scorer in the form of Andy. Second, the team's PPBs on IS sets indicate that they have the ability to do better than they have been so far in terms of final finishes. I'm not 100% sure how they'll do on housewrites, but considering how well the team was able to do on Maryland Fall without their main scorer, I'm pretty confident Irvine can be seriously competitive on non-NAQT material if given the opportunity.

San Dieguito:

NAQT: 6thHousewrites: 8th

At this time last year, Klaus was still playing almost exclusively JV packets, which at first made me skeptical of how well they would do as a team going forward. Enter Rokas, who it turns out is an almost perfect foil to all of Klaus' weaknesses. We've only seen Klaus and Rokas play together at two of the three varsity competitions San Dieguito has gone to so far. Both times, the team has managed to break 20 PPB, and at Del Norte they managed to place in the top three, something only 4 other SoCal schools have managed to do so far. It's going to be interesting how San Dieguito does on housewrites in the future, but until then, its going to be hard to know how much depth the full team has, and how they will compare with other teams. That said, because San Dieguito's power rate isn't as high as some of the other SoCal teams, it may be hard for them to compete on housewrites, especially some of the HS+ sets, which is why I put them so low in that regard.

Torrey Pines:

NAQT: 7thHousewrites: 7th

As with Irvine, I haven't had any personal experience playing against Torrey Pines yet this year, so my perception of their standing among other SoCal teams is probably somewhat skewed. That said, it seems like Thomas has improved since last year (5.9 powers a game at Bronco Bowl, holy crap). However, the team still struggles with their notorious neg-problem, which in all likelihood could cost them some crucial games. My rating for housewrite performance is pure speculation however, and is mostly based off stats from last season. We'll have to wait and see how Torrey Pines does on housewrites, but my guess is that a high neg rate is probably going to be a larger problem in a set like HFT or BHSAT than, say, an IS set.

Olympian B:

NAQT: 8thHousewrites: NA

I was legitimately considering putting Olympian's B team above their A team because of how often they seem to beat them. Cheap gags aside, Olympian B has a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses as their big siblings. Just like the A team, Olympian B rarely ever negs, and is very fast on buzzer races, and is extremely consistent overall, just less so. Olympian B has the potential to catch any team off their guard and remorselessly upset them (as we learned the hard way at DNE) but as always, they still have room for improvement.

CCA B:

NAQT: 9thHousewrites: 6th

To be fair to CCA B: when they're at their best, they can steamroll most other teams in the field. Unfortunately for them, this requires one of the starters to pop off. This has happened two out of four times this year so far. Wesley popped off at Bronco Bowl, and Raymond popped off at Triton Fall. When nobody on the team pops off, they become highly susceptible to upsets, which usually send them to the consolation bracket. If CCA B can fix this consistency problem, we can count on them to make it to the top 5 at just about every local tournament they go to. As of now, however, the issue of consistency is still a glaring issue for the team moving forward. That being said, it's pretty Likely that CCA B will end up being a top tier housewrite contender if Triton was any indication of future performances, so it's going to be interesting how they move forward from here.

North Hollywood A:

NAQT: 10thHousewrites: 5th

I think Noho is probably the team with the biggest contrast on how they do on housewrites vs NAQT. They absolutely smashed Triton Fall, but haven't done anywhere near as well on any of the IS tournaments they've gone to as of yet. NoHo is a pretty good team overall on NAQT as well, but they need to figure out some kind of a strategy to transfer their positive results from Triton to other tournaments they go to.

Overall, I think the scene in SoCal has shown itself to be extremely competitive, and hopefully we can carry that into nats later this year.